PeerCast.org
was established in April 2002 as a non-profit site providing
free P2P radio software. The aim of the project is to create
an easy to use, simple and reliable software client that enables
anyone to broadcast streaming media on the Internet without
the need for expensive servers or bandwidth.
PeerCast
offers considerable savings for broadcasters because they do
not have to provide bandwidth for all of their listeners. A
single 56K modem can be used to broadcast a radio station to
the entire network.
PeerCast
is a robust network because there is no central server, each
user can be a client, server or broadcaster of streams. It offers
anonymity for broadcasters because there is no easy way to trace
back to the original stream, it is even possible to broadcast
directly to a single client located in a different country and
have that provide the source for the entire network.
PeerCast
can also serve streams directly to any media player. This means
that it can be used in place of a Shoutcast/Icecast server to
provide both direct and P2P streaming at the same time.
It
works in much the same way as other P2P fileshare clients except
that instead of downloading files, the users download streams.
These streams are then exchanged in real-time with other users.
No data is stored locally on any machine connected to the network.
The
client software has the ability to serve web pages to normal
browsers such as Mozilla and Internet Explorer. This means that
people on your LAN can search for and listen to channels without
having to install the client software on their PC. Offices can
have one PeerCast client providing audio streams to the entire
LAN. Or you can set up a private network with your friends on
the Internet to listen to music. Its your choice about whether
you connect directly to the PeerCast network or not.
PeerCast
runs on Windows™, Linux and Mac OSX.
Features
-
Support
for MP3, OGG Theora and Vorbis, WMA, WMV and NSV.
-
HTML
(Linux/Windows) and Windows task-bar icon interface
-
Remote
configuration via any web browser
-
Extremely
low memory footprint and CPU load
-
One
click streaming - click on any peercast:// URL to start listening†
-
Direct
streaming - PeerCast can act as a standard streaming server
such as Shoutcast/Icecast to provide both direct and P2P streaming.
-
Multiple
broadcasting - use mount points to broadcast multiple channels
from the same server
-
Anonymous
broadcasting - clients do not tell each other if they are
the source or just listening
-
Remote
broadcasting - broadcast to a client located on another machine
anywhere on the Internet
-
Icecast/Icecast2/SHOUTcast/WindowMedia
streaming support including relaying from external sources.
-
Support
for all popular media players, WinAmp, XMMS etc..
-
Fully
decentralized - any PeerCast client can be used to setup a
private relay or provide connection bases to the main network
-
Security
settings to control access rights for Connections/Broadcasting/Admin
etc..
-
IP
address filtering and banning
-
Custom
settings to limit bandwidth and the number of connections
in/out
-
Does
not require incoming ports to be configured
-
Full
support for ICY-Metadata (MP3) and OGG Vorbis comment headers
for title/artist/song display
-
One-click
play for any channel straight from the Taskbar icon
-
Favorite
channels list allowing almost instant reconnection to your
channels
-
Freeware,
not ad/spy ware
-
Open
source
-
Now
includes OggCap - Video broadcasting tool.
